Operations planning and mission readiness testing for the THEMIS spacecraft constellation

THEMIS-a five-spacecraft constellation - is a NASA Medium Explorer mission that was launched in 2007 and maneuvered into synchronized, highly elliptical Earth orbits to study magnetospheric physics leading to the appearance of the aurora borealis. THEMIS operations are conducted from the multi-mission control center at the University of California, Berkeley. After a successful completion of the prime mission phase in fall of 2009, all five spacecraft and the ground systems are still performing very well. The excellent flight and ground systems performance can in part be traced back to a carefully designed and meticulously executed mission readiness test program, as well as operations planning and extensive operator training. This paper describes the methodology of the mission readiness test program, its organization from box level to full systems level end-to-end testing, and includes lessons learned that may be directly applicable towards future missions.